Reliance upon messaging services for personal and business use has grown significantly in recent years. The average business or home user relies upon a diverse set of voice mail, e-mail and FAX services. However, the user interface in many messaging systems is often deficient. In addition, messaging systems generally do not provide an integrated and flexible environment for the retrieval and manipulation of diverse message types. For example, a typical user maintains separate services for voice mail and e-mail and is forced to learn and use a different command set for each service. Moreover, the command structure for a typical messaging service such as voice-mail often requires the user to navigate a complex menu structure. Mastering this command structure is often time consuming and confusing and because of this difficulty, most users do not take advantage of many of the features of the system. In addition, the complexity of learning and operating many messaging systems and the lack real time messaging involving synchronous communication often results in user's decision to avoid using the service at all. For example, it is estimated that many e-mail subscribers fail to check their e-mail accounts on a regular basis. The majority of the current generation of consumer e-mail services require a user to switch on their personal computer, start a program to initiate a dial-up connection with their e-mail server and then navigate a complex set of menus and commands to read each e-mail, respond or perform other functions. Although most e-mail systems in the work place do not require dial-up access, often the message recipient is away from the computer terminal, and therefore may miss important time-sensitive messages.
The lack of an instant or direct notification upon the receipt of a message is a significant shortcoming of many messaging systems. Although the availability of “paging” services provide some means for high priority message transfer, these services have limited capability in the size of transmitted messages. Typically, paging services provide the capacity to alert a subscriber of a paging party's telephone number only. Furthermore, conventional messaging systems do not provide any filtering mechanism so that a user is only alerted upon the receipt of high priority messages. For example, an e-mail user might desire instant notification when an e-mail message is received from a particular sender or concerning a particular subject.
In addition, message system subscribers often need the capability for the retrieval of messages remotely. For example, often mobile users do not have access to a personal computer or other device necessary to access e-mail messages. A user might be traveling or otherwise unable to gain access to a personal computer or the Internet. For example, a user at home might need the capability of being alerted to the receipt of important e-mail messages on their work e-mail server.
Thus, a need exists for a system through which an electronic message recipient can be quickly notified of the receipt of a message according to a selected set of criteria even while the recipient is away from a computer terminal or other device typically used for the retrieval of messages. Furthermore, there is a need for a complementary system through which a user can retrieve an electronic message remotely, even though the intended recipient does not have access to a personal computer or other conventional retrieval apparatus.